Nick Khan Talks WWE-ESPN Deal, Says Other Streamers Were Interested

As previously reported, WWE and ESPN have signed a new five-year deal that will see ESPN carry WWE’s premium live events starting in 2026. In an interview with The Varsity (via Wrestling Inc), Nick Khan spoke about how the deal went down, noting that there was interest from other streamers.

He said: “You know, the media rights marketplace, I think, to any reasonable person looking at it has sort of become reflective, relatively speaking, of course, of the US economy, where the upper-tier products continue to go up, the premium content continues to get premium pricing. And the lower-tier content continues to sort of make its way. It’s the middle that got squeezed a bit. And fortunately for WWE and our shareholders and our fans, we’re not in the middle, So it’s a significant step up. It’s a great platform for us. And to have WWE, what we consider to be the number one sports entertainment product in the world on the most family-friendly apparatus [ESPN] is big for all of us. It was real [interest from other streamers], and we happen to be in a good position. Timing always matters on these things. And think about this, the Peacock deal, we struck at the height of pre-vaccine COVID. So, a couple of factors, we always think you need a little bit of luck in these deals. The luck there certainly, you know, COVID was a disaster for everybody. But the luck there was that the Olympic Games had been postponed for a year, and Peacock needed content.“